The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

he was sure the crowd lacked the barest idea of what this might mean, seeing only that its leaders were unpleasantly at a loss.
    “What
was
he doing there—” began Crabbé.
    “
Open the doors
!” shouted the Contessa, glaring at Chang but raising her voice so it cut like a razor to the rear of the room. Behind him Chang heard the sound of bolts being drawn. At once the crowd began to whisper, looking back and then shifting away. Someone else was entering the ballroom. Chang glanced at the dais—they all seemed as fixed on the new entry as the crowd—and then back, as the whispering became punctuated by gasps and even cries of alarm.
    The crowd made way at last, clearing the floor between Cardinal Chang and, walking slowly toward him, the Comte d’Orkancz. In his left hand was a black leather leash, attached by a metal clasp to the leather collar around the neck of the woman who walked behind him. Despite everything, the breath clutched in Chang’s throat.
    She was naked, her hair still hanging black in lustrous curls, walking pace by deliberate pace behind d’Orkancz, her eyes roving across the room without seeming to fix on any one thing inparticular, as if she were seeing it all for the very first time. She moved slowly, but without modesty, as natural as an animal, each footfall carefully placed, feeling the floor deliberately as she looked at their faces. Her body was gleaming blue, shimmering from its indigo depths, its surface slick as water, pliant but still somehow stiff as she walked, giving Chang the impression that each movement required her conscious thought and preparation. She was beautiful and unearthly—Chang could not look away—the weight of her breasts, the perfect proportion of her ribs and her hips, the luscious sweep of her legs. He saw that, apart from her head, there was now no hair on Angelique’s face or body—the lack of eyebrows somehow opening the expression on her face like a blankly beatific medieval Madonna’s, at the same time her bare sex was both impossibly innocent and lewd.
    Only the whites of her eyes were bright. Her eyes settled on Chang.
    The Comte flicked her leash and Angelique drifted forward. The ballroom was silent. Chang could hear the click of each footfall on the polished wood. He wrenched his eyes to d’Orkancz and saw cold hatred. He looked to the dais: shock on the faces of Crabbé and Xonck, but the Contessa, however troubled, looking at her companions, as if to gauge the success of this distraction. Chang looked back at Angelique. He could not stop himself. She stepped closer … and he heard her speak.
    “Car-din-al
Chang
,” she said, enunciating each syllable as carefully as ever … but her voice was different, smaller, more intense—as if half of what had made it had been boiled away.
    Her lips were not moving—
could
they move?—and he realized with a shock that her words were in his head alone.
    “Angelique …” His voice was a whisper.
    “It is finished, Cardinal … you know it is … look at me.”
    He tried to do anything else. He could not. She came nearer and nearer.
    “Poor Cardinal … you desired me so very much … I desired so very much also … do you remember?”
    The words in his mind expanded, like Chinese paper balls in water, blooming out into bright flowers, until he felt her presence overwhelm him and her projected thoughts take the place of his own senses.
    He was no longer in the room.
    They stood together at the river bank, gazing into the grey water at twilight. Had they ever done such a thing? They had, he knew, once—once they had by chance met in the street and she allowed him to walk her back to the brothel. He remembered the day vividly even as he experienced it again through her own projected memory. He was speaking to her—the words meaningless—he had wanted to say anything to reach her, relating the history of the houses they passed, of his daring experiences, of the true life of the river bank. She’d barely said a word. At the time he had wondered if it was a matter of language—her accent was still strong—but now, crushingly, with her thoughts in his mind, he knew that she had merely chosen not to speak, and that the entire episode had nothing to do with him at all. She had only agreed to walk with him—had deliberately gone to him in the street—so as to avoid another jealous client who had followed her all the way from Circus Garden. She had barely heard Chang’s words, smiling